Politics Plus

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  WWW and I will be celebrating the day with roast ham, cheese baked potatoes, Brussels sprouts hollandaise, and a surprise dessert from Wendy.  If news is as scarce as I anticipate, I may publish only an Open Thread tomorrow, and send no links on Care2.  I wish Happy Holidays to all Republicans, and Merry Christmas to everyone else, even if you don’t celebrate it.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:02 (average 5:09).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MoveOn Channel): Senator Gillibrand​ Will Not Be Silenced

I fully agree. Hold those who devalue women, especially Putin’s Pussy Grabber, accountable! RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: [O]n Tuesday, in a convention center in West Palm Beach, Florida, amid chants of “USA!” and “The wall is going to be built!,” Donald Trump, Jr., kicked off a three-day annual summit for Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit. Based outside of Chicago, Turning Point’s aim is to foment a political revolution on America’s college campuses, in part by funnelling [sic] money into student government elections across the country to elect right-leaning candidates. But it is secretive about its funding and its donors, raising the prospect that “dark money” may now be shaping not just state and federal races but ones on campus.

Turning Point touts its close relationship with the President’s family. The group’s Web site promoted Don, Jr.,’s appearance for weeks, featuring a photo of him raising a clenched fist. Its promotional materials include a quote from the younger Trump praising Turning Point: “What you guys have done” is “just amazing.” Lara Trump, the wife of Don, Jr.,’s brother Eric, is also involved with the group. In West Palm Beach on Wednesday, she hosted a luncheon promoting Turning Point’s coming Young Women’s Leadership Summit. The group’s twenty-four-year-old executive director and founder, Charlie Kirk, told me that he counts Don, Jr., as “a personal friend.”

Turning Point casts itself as a grassroots response to what it perceives as liberal intolerance on college campuses. Kirk has called college campuses “islands of totalitarianism”; he and his supporters contend that conservatives are the true victims of discrimination in America, and he has vowed to fight back on behalf of what he has called his “Team Right.” Kirk is a frequent guest on Fox News, and last summer he was invited to give a speech at the Republican National Convention. That was where he met Donald Trump, Jr., and “hit it off” with him, Kirk said. After the convention, Kirk divided his time between Turning Point activities and working for the Trump campaign as a specialist in youth outreach. “I helped coördinate some rather successful events with him,” Kirk told me, referring to Don, Jr., “and I also carried his bags.” When friends threw Kirk a surprise birthday party earlier this year, Don, Jr., attended, as did Sebastian Gorka, the former Trump White House adviser.

As Turning Point’s profile has risen, so has scrutiny of its funding and tactics. Internal documents that I obtained, as well as interviews with former employees, suggest that the group may have skirted campaign-finance laws that bar charitable organizations from participating in political activity. Former employees say that they were directed to work with prominent conservatives, including the wife of the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in aid of Republican Presidential candidates in 2016. Perhaps most troubling for an organization that holds up conservatives as the real victims of discrimination in America, Turning Point USA is also alleged to have fostered an atmosphere that is hostile to minorities. Screenshots provided to me by a source show that Crystal Clanton, who served until last summer as the group’s national field director, sent a text message to another Turning Point employee saying, “i hate black people. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.”

Click through for the rest of this fine article about the Republican War on Student government.  It’s an eye-opener!  RESIST!!

From NY Times: More than 700 people have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President Trump took office, a wave of departures that puts the administration nearly a quarter of the way toward its goal of shrinking the agency to levels last seen during the Reagan administration.

Of the employees who have quit, retired or taken a buyout package since the beginning of the year, more than 200 are scientists. An additional 96 are environmental protection specialists, a broad category that includes scientists as well as others experienced in investigating and analyzing pollution levels. Nine department directors have departed the agency as well as dozens of attorneys and program managers. Most of the employees who have left are not being replaced.

The departures reflect poor morale and a sense of grievance at the agency, which has been criticized by President Trump and top Republicans in Congress as bloated and guilty of regulatory overreach. That unease is likely to deepen following revelations that Republican campaign operatives were using the Freedom of Information Act to request copies of emails from E.P.A. officials suspected of opposing Mr. Trump and his agenda.

Who can blame them? It’s like chickens resigning over the way foxes run the Henhouse Protection Agency! RESIST!!

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The lox and bagels supper was to die for.  I ate one and a half and was completely stuffed.  It was so good that WWW, who normally eats about half what I do, also packed in one and a half.  I bought a big ham for our Christmas eve dinner.  WWW took it home and will cook it there.  It will be a fine feast.  We have a cold week coming up.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:08 (average 5:11).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Late Show Channel): The Dossier’s Rebuttal To Donald Trump

Dang! Colbert’s AI dossier is smarter than Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten.  RESIST!!

From YouTube: Solstice: The Earth is reaching the turning point

However you celebrate the solstice, if at all, enjoy it. Lona, are you getting a bikini tan with your upside-down solstice? RESIST!!

From NY Times: An end-of-the-year showdown that was once promised over delicate issues like immigration, health care and surveillance appeared to fizzle on Wednesday as key Republicans dropped their demands to shore up shaky health insurance markets and Democrats appeared to abandon their goal to force adoption of a measure protecting young undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Instead, Congress moved toward a one-month punt that would keep the government funded into January and once again put off policy confrontations.

Democrats haven’t given up on DACA, but in January, they won’t be competing for time with the Republican Tax Scam. On the other hand Bought Bitch Mitch (R-KY) bought Susan Collins (R-ME) with a promise that shoring up health care markets would be done before the end of this year. She is as big a liar as he is.  When called on it, she accused the media of being sexist.  RESIST!!

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It sure has been a crazy day!  Windows Update warned me that it was a big one, but I had to get it done, because I can’t be interrupted when I do my online shopping tonight.  It took well over an hour, but at least it installed clean.  Between that and all the other things I have to do, I worked through my morning nap. But I did get a new cat smiley. ‍

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:35 (average 5:00).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest from our own fantasy football league, lefty blog friends.

Playoffs:

Patty Monster eliminated Wendy and plays Vivian in the Semis this weekend.  I squeaked by the Sasquatch by less than two points and play Seth in the Semis.  Wendy plays Squatch this weekend in the game for 5th place.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Right-wing media call Mueller’s investigation a coup against Trump

Barf Bag Alert!!

If this were 1960s, I’d call it Russian Propaganda. OOPS!! That’s what it is! RESIST!!

From Huffington Post: The Senate banking committee rejected President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Export-Import Bank on Tuesday, voting 10-13 against advancing his nomination to the full Senate.

Scott Garrett, who was a tea-party-aligned Republican congressman from New Jersey until he lost his re-election bid in 2016, has faced intense opposition from the business community ― corporations like General Electric Co. and Boeing ― and many traditional GOP allies, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.

That’s because Garrett once wanted to shutter the institution that he now is trying to run, and he consistently voted against reauthorizing it.

No doubt this Bagger is drunk on InsaniTEA and should not be confirmed, but why is the only way to stop one of these guys objection by Banksters and corporate criminals? RESIST!!

From Alternet:

Here are the grounds for investigation. [leading to impeachment]

1. Obstructing justice.

Beginning soon after the inauguration, the president engaged in a course of conduct that sought to obstruct justice in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigations of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and of his own campaign’s potential involvement with Russian activity in the 2016 election.

2. Violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause and Domestic Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Through his businesses in the United States and abroad, the president receives payments, regulatory approval, and other forms of direct and indirect financial benefits from foreign governments. These violate the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause, which prohibits federal officials, including the president, from receiving a “present” or “emolument” from any foreign government or official. The president’s businesses also act as a conduit for enrichment from federal and state government coffers. These violate the Domestic Emoluments Clause, which prohibits the president from receiving, beyond his official salary, any emolument from the United States or any state.

3. Conspiring with others to commit crimes against the United States involving the solicitation and intended receipt by his presidential campaign of things of value from a foreign government and other foreign nationals, and to conceal those violations.

In the 2016 election, the senior officials of Trump’s presidential campaign (including his campaign chairman, his son and his son-in-law) met with Russian nationals after an invitation to receive compromising information about his campaign opponent, Hillary Clinton, that they were told would be of great value to the campaign. Federal campaign finance law prohibits a candidate or campaign from soliciting a foreign national (including a foreign government) for a thing of value. In 2017, after this meeting was revealed, President Trump personally dictated a misleading public statement on behalf of his son about the intended purpose of the meeting.

I shared three of eight. Click through for the other five. RESIST!!

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Wendy is due in about twenty minutes to destink the TomCat and help with several chores, including the dreaded task.  Since my Broncos have already won, may the holy Ellipsoid Orb bless your team.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:37 (average 5:08).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (SNL Channel): White House Tree Trimming Cold Open

It’s almost too accurate to be funny. RESIST!!

From Politico: A lawyer for President Donald Trump’s transition team is accusing special counsel Robert Mueller of unlawfully obtaining tens of thousands of private emails during its investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election.

Kory Langhofer, an Arizona-based attorney representing Trump for America, spelled out the complaint in a seven-page letter sent Saturday to the main House and Senate oversight committees where he raises potential violations of attorney-client privilege and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful search and seizure.

Mueller’s office got the records earlier this summer from the General Services Administration, the government agency charged with holding all transition materials, even while it was “aware that the GSA did not own or control the records in question,” Langhofer wrote.

Translation: There’s stuff in there we don’t want known, and this false claim of misconduct could be the basis to fire Mueller, who may be dismissed only for cause. RESIST!!

From Think Progress: The Trump administration told policy analysts for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta that they could not use certain words in documents for the 2019 budget, the Washington Post reported. Those words were “fetus,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “vulnerable,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

The administration prohibited these words from being used in the budget, which should be released in February, and in supporting materials for Congress and CDC partners. A “longtime CDC analyst” who spoke to the Post said that they did not remember a time when an administration previous banned “controversial” words from budget documents. The analyst said it’s probable that other areas of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have had the same directive.

The next step in the Republican censorship of truth description terms will be to hijack funding for State and Local entities that employ them. RESIST!!

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